The allegedly respected Thatcherite knows a thing or two about the media

Big business loved it, small business less so, but most agreed that while the economy could benefit long term, the current low to zero growth isn't going to enjoy a quick pick up from the Budget.

Margaret Thatcher was privately urged by senior ministers to consign Liverpool to a fate of "managed decline" after the Toxteth riots and spend regeneration money elsewhere, according to official papers made public for the first time today.

The last time a government faced riots on the British mainland as widespread as last week's was in the summer of 1981, when trouble began in Brixton and spread to almost every major city in England.

Thirty years have passed since Liverpool's poverty-fuelled riots destroyed parts of the city. Stephen Kelly, who covered the violence in 1981, reports from a city that still feels its impact

Nick Clegg has been making free with his witticisms. He's not the first politician to fancy himself as a comedian, says Andy McSmith

This is an exercise aimed at damaging Ed Balls. Yet, the documents are not incriminating

Ministers should face regular performance reviews in the same way employees do in every other profession, an influential think tank suggests today.

Twenty years ago tomorrow, Margaret Thatcher quit as Prime Minister. Iain Dale recalls the Iron Lady's highly charged tearful last cabinet meeting

In the news again?

Ed Balls might have wanted the shadow chancellor's job in Ed Miliband's frontbench team - but he will surely relish the opportunity to pit his combative style against Home Secretary Theresa May.

What's in a diminutive version of a name?

Peter Walker was one of the great survivors of the Conservative Party, spanning the Heath and Thatcher eras. At the time of his voluntary retirement in 1990, a few months before Thatcher's downfall, no 20th century politician, apart from Churchill and Lloyd George, had served longer in Cabinets and Shadow Cabinets, and it was appropriate that he should call his memoirs Staying Power. Though he never held one of the "great" offices of state, the variety of posts that he did fill, and the timing of them, ensured that he made significant contributions to British public life, proving a minister of considerable executive efficiency. Political durability was not his only claim to fame. His earlier role as a successful city financier, particularly with Jim Slater, would alone have ensured him the attention of serious commentators.

Lab Notes